Kirsten Gillibrand in What Will It Take to Make A Woman President?, by Marianne Schnall

On Civil Rights:
Off the Sidelines Project: engage more women in politics

Everywhere I look today, very promising campaigns and projects are emerging to help women attain positions of influence and leadership. I wrote an article about Hillary Clinton's Women in Public Service Project, whose ambitious goal is global, political,
and civic leadership of at least 50% women by 2050. I also interviewed Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand about her Off the Sidelines Project, which is "a nationwide call to action to get more women engaged.to enter political life and be heard on political issues."

On Civil Rights:
Raise awareness of impediments for working women

Q: How does Off the Sidelines work in terms of helping arm women?

A: Well, right now it raises awareness, It actually [provides] the information about these structural problems in society that are impediments for women.
A lot of young women, for example, don't know that on average a woman earns 77 cents on the dollar for the same work. They may not realize that women only sit on 16% of Fortune 500 boards and make up only 4% of CEOs.
And I think once you create that awareness of the challenge ahead of us and amplify that with the call to action to get involved, what my website does is allow them to get where they need to go.

Q: I saw on your website that you said, "getting off the sidelines is a state of mind."

On Families & Children:
Affordable daycare is impediment for women working

Q: Women are faced with many challenges of balancing work and family, something I know you can relate to and frequently talk about.

A: Some of the feedback we got is that there are some impediments for women entering the work force; for example,
affordable daycare, good quality early childhood education. Mothers in particular often want to enter the work force, but don't have the child care or the support they need to do so.
So making sure employees know that when they provide childcare services, or when they make it easier for parents to work, they are increasing access to very good workers and to who's available for the work force. That it's a very pro-economy issue if
you can provide affordable daycare. A lot of studies show that if you do that, if you provide it on site or make it accessible, that actually a lot of parents are more productive workers as a result.

On Government Reform:
Illegal for members of Congress to profit from insider info

Gillibrand has made her presence felt in Washington. She served as an architect in passing the STOCK Act, that for the first time makes it clearly illegal for members of Congress to profit from non-public information. "The New York Times" called her
commitment to promoting transparency in Congress a "quiet touch of revolution," and The Sunlight Foundation, the leading advocacy organization dedicated to openness in government, praises Gillibrand as a "pioneer" for her work.